Together
by cw151
Summary: In the aftermath of Loki's mind-control Clint is shutting everybody out. Natasha won't have that, of course, and reminds her partner of what makes them strong.


Disclaimer: Clint and Natasha belong to Marvel and Disney.

**Together**

Clint shot up from his bed, the gun he kept under his pillow at the ready. Facing him was his empty bedroom in Stark Tower, completely dark except for a few lines of light shining through the half-open blinds. Panting heavily, Clint switched on the light on the bedside table and grabbed the little pocket mirror next to the lamp. As he caught sight of his own reflection in the mirror, and particularly, his very own, grey eyes, Clint's breathing slowed. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and opened them again, this time taking in the rest of his face. His complexion was unusually white these days, making his hollow eyes and the dark circles under them even more pronounced. The stubbles of his beard were standing out in the bright light of his bedside lamp, and a thin layer of sweat covered his brows. Clint snapped the pocket mirror shut and let it drop into his lap to rub his face with both of his hands. The look of his face was a one-to-one reflection of his inner state – worn out from the memories of being under Loki's control, overwhelmingly tired from the Tesseract nightmares that appeared as soon as he closed his eyes for even a few minutes, and exhausted from his own shame and guilt at his role in causing the Battle of New York.

Clint had no idea how and if at all he could ever come to terms with the results of Loki's mind control. His guilt was slowly crushing him. The horror of the Tesseract's blue haze invaded every thought Clint had night and day, and he could not wipe the faces of the many agents he killed off his mind. SHIELD had set him up with several therapists, of course, but Clint did not want to talk to them. How could they possibly understand? Yes, he wasn't in control of his actions, but it was him, his body, his hands that executed the fatal orders Loki gave. Everybody who said "that wasn't you" had no idea what they were talking about. When he was under Loki's mind control, he took pride in his successes. He _wanted_ to kill those agents. He _wanted_ to kill Tasha. And he _enjoyed_ the dirty work Loki gave him. To simply say "it wasn't really me" was far beside the point. It had been him, he had felt like himself, acted like himself. Even before he joined SHIELD, Clint had never liked to kill another human being, no matter how evil. But under Loki's control, he did. He would never forgive himself for that.

So he'd been keeping to himself. He didn't mingle with the other Avengers, didn't train with Natasha, and certainly didn't do his evaluation to go on missions again. He felt like a ticking time bomb. This joy in senseless killing had been there. It had been his very own emotion. Who knew when that'd come back once more?

When Clint had first started holing up in his room, Natasha had of course tried again and again to coax him out. She tried to get him to spar with her, to starve him out, and found countless of activities he usually enjoyed. Clint ignored all of it, however, and after a very nasty screaming match, Tasha hadn't come back again. That was two weeks ago. Unlike Clint, Natasha had gone back to doing missions shortly after the Battle of New York. She had only taken smaller ones, however, the kind that she'd usually have done without Clint anyway. Just over two weeks ago, a bigger mission came up – taking out a ring of human traffickers in New Jersey – and Natasha had pled with Clint to get back into the game. He didn't of course, and the pleading had turned into the infamous screaming match. Clint had assumed that Tasha would still come back a few days later to say good-bye before she went to New Jersey – she'd done so for each solo mission before that – but she didn't. Their final altercation was one more thing Clint was feeling guilty about now, and he tried his best to drown that guilt under the one from Loki's mind control. It worked most of the time. But then his sleep had gotten even worse since their fight, too.

Clint sighed, shook his head and reached for the bottle of water he usually kept on his bedside table, only to find it empty. Groaning lightly, Clint swung his legs over the edge of his bed, got up and adjusted his grey sweatpants. Pocketing the small mirror – he really didn't go anywhere without it these days, in case he needed another reality-check – he padded out of his room and down the dark corridor to the kitchen. On his way, he passed Natasha's bedroom door; the two of them shared the same floor.

As he entered the kitchen and turned on the light, Clint was suddenly wondering how Natasha's mission was going. He hadn't heard anything from the others, and usually, Tasha and he kept in touch when the other was on a solo mission. Not this time. Clint frowned slightly. It didn't feel right.

After fishing a bottle of water from the refrigerator, Clint plopped down on one of the bar stools around the kitchen island and took a few gulps. "Jarvis, turn on the screens," he commanded quietly. Several different screens all over the kitchen walls flickered to life, and Clint was just wondering whether there was a good football game he could ask Jarvis to re-play for him when one of the smaller screens to his left caught his attention. It was a CCTV view of the helipad on top of Stark Tower, and a quint-jet was just landing on it. Two seconds later, Natasha emerged. She was limping slightly, and Clint could see that her uniform was torn in several places. Behind her, Agent Levenstein poked his head out of the quint-jet, apparently asking whether Natasha needed help. Naturally, Natasha shook her head violently, made an angry shooing gesture and continued on to the elevator.

Clint rubbed his face again. His guilt about the argument with Natasha, who, ever the perfect partner she was, had only been trying to help, was slowly resurfacing. He should have been there with her. Not Agent Levenstein.

The "ding" of the elevator announced Natasha limping on to their shared floor. Clint got up from his seat and walked to the kitchen door, arriving just in time to see Natasha passing him in silence. She didn't even look at him.

"Tash?" Clint's voice was hoarse. Not that he'd been using it much recently.

Natasha stood without turning around.

"What?" was her curt reply.

Clint cleared his throat.

"Do you need help patching yourself up?" he asked, quietly.

"No." Clint could tell that Natasha was seething inside. Her anger was more than justified, of course. He'd failed her as a partner. First, he'd tried to kill her, and now he didn't even go on missions with her anymore. Looking at her battered, exhausted frame, Clint's reasons why he couldn't be trusted in the field any longer suddenly felt a lot less pressing.

"And how are you going to take care of the stuff on your back?" Clint questioned, half-pointing to several cuts littered with small debris that covered Natasha's left.

"I'll be fine," Natasha replied, still curt but some of the sharpness of her first reply had gone.

She continued limping to her room and straight into her private bathroom. After carefully lowering herself on the closed toilet, she began to take off her boots. Clint followed her.

"I told you, I'm fine!" she said, flashing him an angry look as she tried to unfasten her boots without bending too far and making the injuries of her upper body even worse.

Clint didn't say anything as he pulled out the big med kit from the bathroom cupboard and knelt in front of her. Natasha's face was vacant when he carefully took off her boots and socks. She seemed to have strained her left ankle; it was swollen and black and blue.

Apparently Natasha had resigned to his help. She zipped down her suit and stood up so that she could wriggle out of it. Clint didn't miss her various winces as she did so. Left in only her sports bra and panties, Clint motioned for her to step into the shower and proceeded to rinse her with luke-warm water. Occasionally, Natasha would let out a slight hiss.

Clean from the major dirt and debris, Natasha lowered herself back on to the toilet and Clint began to clean and bandage her wounds one by one. Fortunately, none of them were deep enough that they required stitching. As usual, Clint treated Natasha's wounds with outmost care and tenderness.

"Success?" He looked up to her after a while, referring to the mission. He was almost done patching her up. She just nodded.

Clint adjusted the last band-aids and double-checked the bandage around Natasha's sprained ankle. When he looked back up to her, she was looking directly at him. Her cool façade was gone, and her expression seemed almost soft. Clint sat back on his heels and looked back at her warily.

"We finally got them. Everyone who was someone in their gang was in one single warehouse. I wanted to garner some last intel before taking them all out. Levenstein was watching my back with a sniper gun. He wasn't positioned well, though. The gang cornered me in a way that he couldn't shoot any of them without hitting me first," she offered. Clint sighed inwardly and lowered his eyes. Levenstein was one of the best agents, but such a bad positioning would never have happened to Clint himself. Ever. Particularly not if Natasha was involved. Natasha seemed to have guessed his thoughts.

"Levenstein is a great agent and a decent sniper, but he usually goes in directly, just like me." The implication was clear. He should have been there. He and Natasha complemented each other. She was close-up, he worked from the distance. Together, they had all their bases covered.

"When they cornered me, I noticed a gas tank in one of the corners opposite me and shot it. Within seconds, the inside of the warehouse was blazing. Enough distraction to take out some of the gangsters and get the hell out," she finished.

"I should have been there," Clint said dejectedly, not meeting her eyes.

"Yes, you should have," Natasha replied calmly.

"I'm sorry! I really am. It's just that – I can't – I mean, how –" Clint stammered. All of a sudden, the faces of the agents he killed were dancing around him. Clint hadn't even noticed that they'd been gone the entire time as he was patching Natasha up.

Clint looked up to Natasha.  
"How could you trust me after all that's happened? How do you know that you can trust me again? When I can't even trust myself?" he asked, anger starting to rise up to his chest. Loki really had destroyed everything for him.

Natasha's expression turned serious. She took his face in both of her hands and looked him straight in the eyes.

"I just _know_, Clint. I _know_. I know you, I know us. I know that I can trust you." She paused shortly. "And I understand that none of us can even imagine what you are going through. But shutting us out, shutting me out isn't the way out of this. Clint, think about it-" Her gaze got even more intense.

"We can get through anything – _together_. We're a team. We're partners. We complement each other. We fit. We know each other, better maybe than we know ourselves. Whenever something went wrong, it was because we _weren't _together. Remember Hong Kong? You got caught only because Coulson thought it best if I came in later." Clint winced internally. Caught and tortured. Several hours until Natasha finally busted him out. Once reunited, taking the drug cartel out was ridiculously easy. "Or Rome? Or La Paz? It's when we're apart, when we don't talk to each other, when we shut the other out that the really bad things happen. It was when Loki got to you in the first place, and why it's so hard to find a way out of this mess. We have to do this _together_."

Deep inside, Clint knew Natasha was right. But the doubts and guilt lingered.

"How do you even know that I'm still the partner you knew? I told you before, Tasha, I don't even know myself anymore. Those memories, those feelings I actually felt – I don't know who I am anymore," he argued.

"Maybe you can't see it, but I know that you are still the Clint Barton I met all these years ago. I can tell by the way you suffer from your guilt, I can tell by the caring way you patched me up just now, and I can tell because of the very doubts you're surrounded by right now." Natasha's eyes were still trained at Clint.

"I get what you are trying to say, I really do. But knowing you inside out was also what made me so valuable to Loki. Or do you honestly want to tell me that he didn't get to you when you interrogated him on the Helicarrier? He could say and threaten all of these things because of what he knew from me!" Clint's eyes started prickling. He had of course watched the security footage of everything that happened during the attack on the Helicarrier and he would never forget Loki's threat to make him rape and kill Natasha.

"Honestly? No, Loki did _not_ get to me. On the contrary. The whole situation actually showed me something different altogether, something I never would have thought." Natasha snorted lightly as she thought back.

"When Coulson called me and told me what Loki had done to you, one of my worst fears came true. Someone had kidnapped you and tried to use you against me. The funny thing was – all this time, I thought that if such a situation came, I'd lose all objectivism and get myself – and _you_ – into a big mess because I wouldn't be able to keep my emotions in check. But when the situation actually happened, it was the complete opposite. I got so focused. My mind was clearer and more objective than ever before because I knew that it was the only way to save you. The others, Fury in particular, were worrying that I wouldn't be able to fight you when it came down to it. But in my mind, you under mind-control were just another one of the bad guys that I'd have to take out to get my partner back. And when Loki tried to threaten me during his interrogation, all he did was fuel my determination to _not_ let him win and to get you back." There was a combination of amusement and tenderness in Natasha's eyes that Clint had never seen before. He swallowed.

"But he threatened to have me rape you –" Clint added weakly.

"Do you really think that was the first time someone ever did that? With my history and as a female agent, I don't think there's a more common threat. Of course, it helped to know that I could kick you ass anytime," her eyes glinted with humor at that but grew serious again, "and that, as I mentioned, controlled-you and my-partner-you were two different people to me at that point. Of course I was worried sick about what Loki could do to you, but the worry only made me more tenacious."

Clint didn't say anything. He probably should not have been surprised that Natasha wasn't impressed by Loki's threat at all.

"So, please Clint, stop shutting me out and let me help you. Let's do this together, as partners. It'll be long, it'll be painful, but we _will_ do it. I want my partner back. I _need_ my partner back." She almost whispered the last two sentences. Her hands were still on either side of his face and she smoothed his temples with her thumbs.

Clint was at a breaking point. Natasha was one hundred percent right, of course. They belonged together. They were going to do this together. Tears shot to his eyes. He was so happy that Natasha still stood by him despite the terrible way in which he'd treated her in the last weeks. He nodded. There was a way out of this nightmare.

"I'm so sorry about everything," he mumbled. "I can't believe how I treated you in the last few weeks – after I tried to kill you! I was way out of line." His breathing hitched.

"Don't worry about it. Just - don't do it again!" Natasha teased, smiling. Clint couldn't bring himself to smile as well, but his face did get a lot lighter.

"I promise I won't," he replied. Natasha kept smiling and looked at him for a moment before leaning in and kissing him lightly on the lips.

Clint's initial reaction was shock. They had kissed once before, after a mission they hadn't thought they'd survive, and their feelings for each other were certainly no secret, but until now, Natasha had always refused to enter an actual relationship for fear of being compromised. Now it seemed like she really did mean every word she said about her reaction to his mindnapping.

Clint began to kiss her back, stretching himself on his knees to get closer to her. His hands traveled up her sides and dug into her red curls. They stayed that way for a few more minutes, only breaking for air ever so shortly. Finally, Natasha rested her forehead on his.

"Let's go sleep," she said. "I'm starting to get cold and you look like you could do with some sleep as well."

Clint nodded and stood up. His knees had been hurting for a while now, pressed on to the tiled floor of the bathroom, but he had not wanted to break the spell that had encompassed them in the last hour. Natasha grabbed his hand and pulled him towards her bed. He lay down on his back and Natasha proceeded to lie next to him on her side, facing the door across his body. She rested her head on his chest and tangled her feet with his. Clint pulled the blanket all the way up to their shoulders, turned off the lights and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

"Night, partner!" Natasha whispered.  
Clint smiled lightly.

"Night, partner!" he replied softly.

For the first time in weeks, Clint only woke up to nightmares twice that night. When he did, he laced Natasha's fingers with his. "Together," he reminded himself.

Thank you for reading! :) Reviews are greatly appreciated!


End file.
